Water Requirements for Cooling Artificial Turf

Abstract

Artificial turf with black infill material gained widespread use on athletic fields starting in the early 2000s. One argument made in the desert southwestern United States for replacing natural grass–based athletic fields with artificial turf surfaces is that water is not needed for irrigation. However, it has been shown that in arid and semiarid climate zones the surface temperature of the artificial turf fields can exceed 80°C during the summer, requiring irrigation and drainage systems to keep them cool enough for use. An experiment was conducted at New Mexico State University to evaluate the amount of water required to maintain surface temperatures comparable to those of natural turfgrass areas. A mathematical model was developed based on the heat balance equation to determine heat dissipation from artificial turf–based fields with comparison of the predicted values to experimental data. Overall, our model estimates were within 12% of the measured values. The model indicates that over a 24-h period, the amount of water (3.00 to 5.00 mm) required to maintain artificial turf at temperatures similar to irrigated natural turfgrass are comparable.